On November 25, 1985, Bonnie Sons experienced both the highest and lowest moments of her life.

Earlier that morning, she had shivered on the starting line with her Iowa State University teammates at the NCAA cross-country championship meet hosted by Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Before the women’s 5K race began, volunteers had to shovel deep snow drifts off the course. But the cold didn’t dampen the ISU runners’ spirits: When the gun went off, the seven women, led by Sons, formed a close pack, following their coach Ron Renko’s instructions to attack the race as a team. The runners pushed and pulled each other through the slushy miles all the way to the line, where the top six runners finished within 25 seconds of each other.

Sons, who was a junior at the time, came in first for the Cyclones and 25th overall, running a 16:59. Behind her, the rest of ISU’s top five placed 29th, 32nd, 42nd, and 45th in the race.

“We collectively had a great race,” Sons, now 53, told Runner’s World. “We thought we were good for a top 10 finish. When we found out that we’d finished second to Wisconsin, it was beyond our wildest dreams.”

The ecstatic teammates accepted the runner-up NCAA trophy, besting third-place North Carolina State by just five points in the final team scores. Before they could celebrate fully, though, they had to fly back to their Ames, Iowa, campus in time for the ISU basketball team to board the same fleet of planes to travel to their own competition.

As the team loaded their gear into ISU’s three small aircrafts that day, Sons’s mother quickly pulled them aside to snap a photo. In the picture, which Sons keeps at her current home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the teammates are bundled up in sweatshirts, their cheeks rosy from the cold and their victory.

“It was such a mom thing to do, having us pose for a photo,” Sons said. “I’m so happy she did, though. We were all so happy in that moment. It was the last photo we ever took together.”

Hours later, tragedy struck. While the first two planes were landing safely in Des Moines, the third—which held ISU runners Sheryl Maahs, Julie Rose, and Susan Baxter, plus their coaches Ron Renko and Pat Moynihan as well as trainer Stephanie Streit—lost power in one engine and rapidly dropped in altitude, according to the Des Moines Register. Shortly after, the plane crashed in a suburban neighborhood in Des Moines, about two miles short of the runway, killing the six people from ISU as well as pilot Burton Watkins.

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“Most people living in Des Moines at the time can remember exactly where they were and what was on TV when it happened,” Timothy Lane, an avid runner and former community director of the city’s Dam to Dam 20K race, told Runner’s World. “It was devastating.”

“They were my family,” said Sons. In the aftermath of the accident, she found solace in running, not wanting to take for granted the activity that was abruptly taken away from her friends. She would go on to qualify for and compete in the 2000 Olympic Marathon Trials.

“I was given a second opportunity at life, and I didn’t want to waste it,” she said.

As time went on, the news of the crash faded from headlines. Sons and the rest of her teammates graduated, and many moved away from Iowa. Though they had viewed horrific photos of the broken plane, they avoided visiting the crash site, Sons said.

Lane, who’s now approaching 70, said he often bikes in that particular neighborhood. In the fall of 2015, on the 30th anniversary of the plane crash, he started thinking about building a memorial for the fallen ISU runners and coaches.

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“I wanted to do something to celebrate their lives,” said Lane. “Those ladies lived great, active lives with purpose. I didn’t want them to be forgotten.”

Over the past three years, Lane worked with Dam to Dam, ISU, and the Des Moines community to raise $10,000 to construct a memorial for the team, which was recently unveiled at a special ceremony on November 25, 2018.

A red ISU blanket covers the memorial plaque, which is engraved with the names of the runners, coaches, trainer, and pilot who died in the 1985 plane crash.

Tim Lane

The memorial, located on same hallowed ground as the crash, is shaped like a hexagon to honor the six passengers from ISU. In one corner, a plaque resting on a boulder is inscribed with the names of the runners, coaches, trainer, and pilot who passed away, along with a small engraving of a stick-figure runner that Renko often added to the end of all of his workout notes for the team.

Sons attended the unveiling last month with several of her former teammates, including Charlene Elyea and Tami Prescott, while Jill Winter joined in via FaceTime. It was only the second time Sons had been to that corner of town in 33 years, having visited the site for the first time in 2015, on the 30th anniversary of the crash.

“It was a bittersweet event,” Sons said. “I loved seeing all of my teammates again, but seeing them, especially in that place, brought up the horror of that day. I’m now a mom to four children who are around college-age, and I can’t imagine what my teammates’ parents and siblings went through that year.

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“I’m incredibly grateful for what Tim and ISU have done with the memorial,” she continued. “This is a special group of people, and they’ll always have a special place in my heart. I’m happy knowing that other people will run past this area and think of them. And my teammates and I will always have a place to go back and remember.”

Hailey MiddlebrookDigital EditorHailey first got hooked on running news as an intern with Running Times, and now she reports on elite runners and cyclists, feel-good stories, and training pieces for Runner's World and Bicycling magazines.

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